Rare Birds
by hongkongstar
Summary: drove through ghosts to get here. AxelRoxas.


Axel didn't find the kid, which, if he could be bothered to regret anything, he might be mildly pissed about. It's not over the actual, definitive, solidity of discovery, but over the bragging rights that Xigbar likes to rub in his fucking face. Axel doesn't get what he's so pleased over anyway. Xigbar's as close to the boss as he's gonna get, unless he starts sucking his cock, and everyone knows Saïx deals with that.

So he ignores Xigbar, and he ignores the kid, and he ignores everyone else getting rubbed up the wrong way cause they aren't smart enough to ignore anything. Still, he takes notice when Xigbar finally shuts up, cause it turns out the kid's flawed, somehow, and the boss is pissed, in that way that the boss gets pissed, without actually getting angry or acting like something's wrong, but just going hard, cold, and laughing a whole fucking lot. Xigbar isn't around for a while after that, so Axel finally figures he might as well, and goes to see what all the fuss is about.

"Beautiful, isn't he?" the boss says, sliding up behind him on the balcony, staring down at the kid, madness a pale sheen over his eyes. Axel shrugs. He doesn't remember what beautiful is, really, but he's not gonna think about that, cause that's not what he does.

Instead he says, "He's a runt," cause he always calls them like he sees them. The boss laughs.

"That isn't what I meant, dear Axel," he says, and the kid slices through a few more Heartless, the light glinting slick and oily off the keyblades as he moves, as they fall apart, their stolen hearts flying up, free, into nothing.

A few days later, he hears that Saïx is pissed, royally and utterly, and grins, when he hears it's the kid that did it. He doesn't care how. He finds him wandering the corridors on the eleventh floor, pacing the halls like an animal trapped in a maze that's too big for him. Axel gets in his way. "What's your name?" he asks, cause he doesn't know. The kid's eyes are blue, a brief flash of cerulean that dismisses him as soon as it touches on his face.

"Roxas," the kid says, before stepping around him and carrying on. Axel shoves his hands into his pockets and follows, matching his stride easily. Sometimes, he thinks, it's good to be so fucking tall. "Oh man, we are gonna get on," he says, cause it's true.

* * *

Marluxia stops him one day in Castle Oblivion with one hand to his chest. Axel stops, not cause Marluxia wants him to, but cause Marluxia's put a hand on his chest. He looks down at it, and then back up at Marluxia, letting his face do the talking. Marluxia, unfortunately, doesn't drop it.

"He's been sniffing around again," he says instead, the indifference forced and fake in his voice, like Axel doesn't know how Roxas could fuck everything up and Marluxia doesn't want him to know. Like Axel isn't already so deep in this shit he can't blink without seeing brown. "You will make him stop." Axel snorts, cause no one can stop Roxas doing whatever the fuck Roxas wants to do, but Marluxia's already dropped his hand and walked away.

He finds Roxas wandering around some dead world four stops from Neverland, kicking dust up in little clouds. There's a dead tree near him, crooked and black, running up like a crack through the sky. Axel leans against it and waits for Roxas to get out of his funk. It's too much effort to do it any other way.

"What are they doing?" Roxas asks, eventually, still kicking at the ground. Axel wonders why he came here anyway. There's no people, no Heartless. Nothing, for miles, just rocks and dust and dead trees.

"I don't know."

"You're lying," Roxas says, without looking up. He looks petulant; downtrodden; lost. Axel wonders, not for the first time, if there isn't something a little more different between Roxas and the rest of them than just swinging around a sword shaped like a fucking key.

"Of course," and he doesn't even grin.

Roxas stops after a while, and looks up, away from Axel, over the dust that stretches away forever, melting into heat wave against the horizon. He looks like he knows something's there, something important, something huge. Axel laughs to himself. Like there'd be anything important on this great ball of dirt. Roxas looks back at him then, his skin pale against the cloak, his hair bright against the sky, his eyes sharp like Axel interrupted his thoughts, like he was standing on the edge of something, tipping, waiting to fall. He huffs. "I'm so bored."

"Don't look at me. I found you on the big dusty world of dirt. Wasn't my idea of a fun time," he kicks at the tree behind him, and it creaks ominously, dust flaking off it's branches. "What the hell are you doing here anyway?"

"It's weird. There's no Heartless here."

"Yeah. Maybe they realised it's a big ball of nothing and got bored too. Come on, let's blow," he pushes away from the tree, but Roxas is back to staring into the distance.

"It's still got a heart," he says, absently, but follows when Axel gets pissy and portals out without waiting for him.

* * *

Axel doesn't like Saïx. Everyone knows that. Saïx doesn't like Axel. Everyone knows that too. So it's getting fucking chilly in hell when Axel walks up to him on the ninth floor and gets in his face, says "He's going fucking insane," and then pauses, grinning at what he's just said, cause they're all going fucking insane. The boss virtually drips it from the top floor, and it's soaking down into them all, 'til the whole castle'll be drowning in it and they'll be even more of a class A freak show then they already are. Saïx glares like he can see what Axel's thinking. Or maybe he glares cause Axel just got in his face, and, like everyone knows, Saïx doesn't like Axel.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Give him something to do," Axel says, cause all Roxas does is hang around the castle, or try to get into the _other _castle, and as much as Axel hates Saïx, he hates Marluxia more, and if Roxas fucks everything up he'll be fucking Axel over right along with Marluxia.

Saïx raises an eyebrow. "It doesn't occur to you that I may have already given him something to do?" and no, it hadn't, cause all Roxas does is whinge and moan and kick at the walls, like the boss has him trapped up like a prize pet in a big ol' cage of darkness. Axel leans back, slightly surprised, and not giving a shit if he shows it or not.

"What's he meant to be doing then?" But Saïx is obviously bored already, and Axel accidentally gave him the room, so he's walking away.

"If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you," he says as he disappears around the corner, cause Saïx hates Axel, and sometimes that means he just can't help getting the last word in.

* * *

He portals out onto a beach, soaking wet, and shakes the water from his hair like a big, red, spiky dog. Roxas glares at him for a moment, only slightly less wet himself, like he made the same unexpected stop as Axel and has been standing here for a while, drying out in the sun. He looks like a damp mouse.

Axel laughs. "What the fuck?" he says, rhetorically, cause no one asks 'what the fuck' and really expects an answer. That's the whole point of 'what the fuck.' And now's a brilliant time for it, cause Axel hadn't really expected to follow Roxas' trail and find himself underwater. He hadn't really expected there to be a world where the biggest powerhouses were underwater people. Mermaids. "What the fuck?" he says again, cause, really. Mermaids.

Roxas glares at him again, as if to say, 'yeah, mermaids. Get the fuck over it.' His hair's stuck to his face, only slightly dried out at the back, where it's making a valiant attempt to revert back to its normal spikes. It makes his eyes look even bigger and bluer. He's stripped his cloak off, and it's draped over one of the rocks halfway up the beach, and the skin of his bare chest looks painfully pale next to the black of his pants. Axel grins. That's what living in darkness does to you. Hardly promotes a fucking tan.

He doesn't bother moving, cause he knows if he does, he'll squelch. Members of Organisation XIII don't squelch. Well, maybe Demyx, and that's only on bad days. So he pulls his cloak off and chucks it onto the sand, sitting down and pulling his boots off, shaking the water out of them. He sinks his damp toes into the sand and leans back on his elbows, closing his eyes and feeling the warmth of the sun on his face.

"I went to Saïx for you," he says, not bothering to open his eyes, not wanting to see Roxas' face. It was a moment of weakness, that, and though he'll take pains to make sure none of the others hear about it, what's done is done, and he did it for Roxas. "Thought you were going crazy bored. You won't tell me what you're doing, will you."

"You won't tell me what they're doing," a pause. "What _you're_ doing."

Axel slits one eye open, watches Roxas try to pull his hair away from his face for a minute, eyes practically crossed as he glares at it. He sighs. "Yeah, whatever," he says, and lays back, the sun making him sleepy. It's not everyday he gets to take a kip on a beach, and damned if he's gonna miss out cause Roxas is an annoying little brat. He hopes he gets sunburn.

* * *

He doesn't see Roxas for a while after that, cause he's busy with the other brats, and the boss, and whenever he tries to find Roxas he can barely feel him out, like he's off on worlds that the Organisation doesn't even know exist. He realises he's getting pissy over it, that Roxas won't tell him, that he can't figure it out. He tries following him once and finds himself in a room that can't decide what fucking perspective or proportion it's at, and he stays there until he gets a headache and just can't be fucked waiting anymore, and portals out.

He doesn't want to be pissed, so he stops thinking about Roxas, and just focuses on what he's meant to be doing. Still, everyone comments that he's grumpy, and whenever he sees Saïx he looks infuriatingly pleased with himself, the fucker. He wants to burn something, so he provokes the other brat as much as he can, but he catches himself imagining he's Roxas once, and it hits too close to home, so he starts avoiding him too.

He notices Naminé looking at him one day and sneers at her. "What?" he says, and she just smiles that stupid fucking knowing smile, and goes back to her drawing. He wants to wipe that smile right off her face, and as he clenches his fists, he can feel the heat in them like molten iron. She doesn't look up, and he doesn't hit her, cause that'd be amazingly stupid. So he just walks out. Stupid fucking weird arsed half-nobody freaks.

* * *

Axel gets sent to find Roxas one day, which is weird, cause he figured if anyone could keep tabs on the kid it's the boss, but instead here he is, feeling out the darkness network, looking for him, just like he decided he wasn't going to do. Still, work is work, and the boss is the boss. He tries out a few dud worlds, before finally finding himself in some weird deserted town, all spindly and gothic and spooky. And dark. Really dark. There's a glowing green fountain which seems to be the only source of light, and all the buildings hulk over it, crooked and foreboding, like they'll either fall over or come to life and eat you at any second. Axel feels a shiver run up his spine and his grin turns _just_ this side of wicked. Oh, he _likes_ this place.

There's a ripple in the air and a portal opens behind him, Roxas looking dazed and slightly flushed. "Oh man, am I glad it's you," he says, and his eyes are wide, like he just saw a star blink out and actually felt something for it. "There's this place on the other- well, it's connected or something, somehow. I don't really understand but—" and he's babbling, which is really un-fucking-Roxas-like, so Axel leans back on his heels and raises an eyebrow, watching. "Well it's," he seems to calm himself down, taking a breath. "It's Christmas town," and if it were possible, his eyes would go wider.

Axel pauses, considering this, and sees an idyllic little town, all gingerbread houses and fairy lights. And snow; candy canes; elves. Axel wrinkles his nose. He hates snow. It's_ cold_.

Roxas hasn't moved. "_Christmas town_, Axel," he says. Axel wrinkles his nose again. _Snow_.

"Think I'll pass," he says. "Prefer it here. Plus," he pauses for dramatic effect. "I'm pretty pissed at you."

"Right," Roxas says, and gathers himself up, like he's actually gonna make up for the huge fucking height difference between them. "You would prefer it here. It's all spooky and," he pauses, also, probably, for dramatic effect, "gothic."

Axel glares. "I am not gothic," he says, cause he's not.

"Right," says Roxas, again. "Are those teardrops tattooed on, or do you use eyeliner every morning?"

Axel almost splutters in outrage, cause they're not fucking teardrops, but manages to hold back. Members of Organisation XIII don't fucking splutter. The brat's grinning up at him like he's Santa Claus, full watt blown bulb bright, and Roxas never smiles like this, so Axel figures he must really fucking like snow. "You know," he says. "If I had a heart, you'd be fucking cute."

Roxas doesn't stop smiling. "If I had a heart, I'd be fucking flattered." Then he grabs Axel's arm. "C'mon," he says, and drags him through a portal.

It's only later, standing in the shadows by one of the little cottages, half damp up one side from falling in the snow, that Axel notices Roxas watching him. He doesn't acknowledge it, doesn't turn, doesn't see it, but he can feel up his spine, colder than the snow at their boots but pooling warm against his throat. They watch some elves trying to fix the merry-go-round they, no, Roxas, busted by accident an hour ago, the icicles above them dripping on Roxas' hood, and Axel never stops to think something might be wrong.

* * *

Axel walks past Demyx on the fifth floor, which is always a bad idea, and Demyx says, "Hey, Axel, you're looking happier," in that obnoxious way that Demyx says everything, grinning, like he's actually clever or something. "Make up with Roxas did you? Just a little lovers tiff, was it?"

Axel doesn't stop walking. "Hey, Demyx, you're looking a bit wet," he says, cause Demyx always looks a bit wet. "Need me to dry you out? You wouldn't wanna get mildew in unseemly places, would you?"

He turns his head slightly to see Demyx give him the finger and returns it, grinning, before shoving his hands back in his pockets and turning the corner.

* * *

Axel wakes up later cause Roxas is touching him. Axel wakes up later, in the middle of the night, cause Roxas has climbed onto his bed, climbed over him, barefoot but still wearing his cloak, and started touching him. Fingertips sweep over his chest, his shoulders, his neck, rough with calluses and boy-skin. One thumb presses a burning hot mark against his throat. Axel wakes up, and is, understandably, a little confused, because Roxas is sitting on him and touching him.

He leans down slightly, hair soft like feathers against Axel's neck, and licks a hot stripe over Axel's collarbone. "What?" Axel asks, cause he can't manage 'the fuck.'

Roxas sits back on Axel's thighs and shrugs "Dunno," he says. "I just felt like it." And before Axel can figure out what's wrong with that statement, Roxas is kissing him, pressing him down and biting at his lip, hands warm on Axel's shoulders. And while Axel isn't adverse to a little biting, the pressing down is kinda getting to him, so he sits up, almost dislodging Roxas but instead catching him, one hand pressed against his back, pulling him tight against his chest.

"Huh," he says, as Roxas bites at his neck, his jaw, grinding down hard against him. This wasn't exactly how he was expecting to wake up, but he's never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and Roxas is writhing in _just_ the right way and licking _just_ the right spot against his jaw. Heat pours down his spine like liquid fire, and when Roxas bites his earlobe, sucking, he moans low and loose, hands fisting in the fabric in the curve of Roxas' lower back.

"C'mon," Roxas says, hot against his ear, voice tipping just this side of desperate, enough to almost make Axel pause, but then he grinds down again, hard and hot against Axel's cock, and Axel pushes him back, off his lap, to land flat back on the bed, spread and open in front of him. He leans over him, sliding his hands under his cloak, along his legs, feeling his fingernails catch in the fabric of his pants, and this is something he remembers, innately, under his skin, this heat and touch and body on body, Roxas' hips fitting easy and tight into his hands.

He slides his fingers under his waistband, feeling Roxas' skin smooth and warm against his fingertips. He's consumed, suddenly, by the urge to feel more of it, and twists his fingers into the fabric and pulls, ripping Roxas' pants down and off. One of Roxas' feet gets caught, and Axel tugs it free, holds it in one hand as he tosses the garment aside. His thumb curves into the arch, and he draws it up, running his teeth over the back, biting gently at the side of his toe. Roxas hisses, toes curling against Axel's palm, and Axel grins, lowering his leg back to the bed.

"C'mon," Roxas says again, quietly, and Axel pulls the bottom zip on Roxas' cloak up to his chest, slowly, pushing the fabric aside, hands trailing over his stomach. His thumb catches in Roxas' navel, and he curves it there, fanning his fingers out to trace the skin just below his ribs. Roxas' skin is deliciously pale against the cloak, spread out underneath him, and he's crossed his arms behind his head, hair slightly mussed, watching Axel with half lidded eyes.

"Think you can fuck me?" he asks, voice catching slightly as Axel pushes a hand up under the cloak, smoothing over the skin of Roxas' chest, fingertips brushing against a nipple before sliding down, before sliding away, before they can touch _there_, press _there_, feel what's missing.

"Sure," Axel says, and leans down, licking along the crease of Roxas' groin, biting the thin skin around his hipbone. Roxas' hips shift, and Axel grins, sitting back on his heels. He curves one hand under Roxas' ankle, thumb rubbing the skin there in small circles, and sucks two fingers of the other hand into his mouth, watching Roxas watching him, running his tongue around his fingertips.

He grips Roxas' ankle, pulling him closer, sliding easy over the bed, and his cloak rucks up around him, folding into shadows and dips. His thighs spread easy and loose around Axel's knees, and Axel runs his free hand up his leg, feeling the soft hairs catch at his palm as he pushes them in the wrong direction. Strokes the underside of his thigh idly before sliding up to his arse, pushing under and getting a good firm handful of one cheek, lifting Roxas' hips up, and pulls his fingers wet from his mouth and slips them hard and fast into him.

Roxas arches his neck, pushing his head back against the bed, groaning, so fucking tight around Axel's fingers, pulsing, hot and alive. He pulls his fingers out slowly, feeling the way Roxas' flesh clings to them all the way out, pushes them back in, the almost easy give, the way Roxas' entrance stretches to accommodate them. He pulls them apart in a scissors motion, and gets a glimpse of Roxas' insides, hot, pink, between them.

"C'mon, Axel," Roxas says, eyes liquid electric, one hand still pillowing his head but the other pressed to his forehead, his hair mussed, a soft flush dark over his cheekbones. "_C'mon_," and it comes out half-moan as Axel curves his fingers sharp inside him before pulling them out completely.

He unbuttons his trousers one handed, his other hand still holding tight onto Roxas' arse, and pushes the fabric down around his thighs, pulling his cock out, dark and heavy against the pale skin of his hand, curving up against his stomach. He spits into his hand, pumping himself slow a few times, coating himself slick, pressing his fingers in a tight ring just under the head, watching it flush dark purple. Roxas moans, and Axel looks up, seeing Roxas watching him, eyes half-lidded, and squeezes tight before letting go, feeling the shudder run up through his chest.

He curls his hand under Roxas' thigh and pulls his legs wider apart, lining himself up and pushing in, Roxas opening up slow and easy around him. He's as tight around Axel's cock as he was around his fingers, and Axel moans at the feeling of it, hot and smooth, muscles pressing down, as much holding him inside as trying to push him out.

Roxas shifts his hips, and Axel gasps, and Roxas cracks a grin, reflection of Axel's own, half smirk and half crazy. He wraps his legs around Axel's waist, the heels of his feet pressing against Axel's back, the dip at the top of his arse.

"Think you can outlast me?" he says, shifting his hips again, Axel gritting his teeth to keep his moan in at the friction. He palms Roxas' cock, hard between their stomachs, and Roxas' eyelids droop slightly, his back arching up a little against Axel, his cock sliding loose in Axel's hand.

"Sure," Axel says, thumbing the head of Roxas' erection, smearing the pre-come there, and then lets go, getting a hold of his hip instead.

He slides out slowly, Roxas' insides clinging around him, until there's just the tip of his cock sitting inside him, Roxas' entrance gripping tight around it.

Then he slams all the way back in, hard, Roxas' mouth opening soundlessly, arching almost completely off the bed, hands flying out to grasp wildly at the bedding. Axel growls, low in his throat, and slides his hands flash fire quick to Roxas' back, pulling him completely up and on top of him, sinking down hot and deep around his cock, Roxas' hands coming up to tangle in the hair at the base of Axel's skull.

"Okay," Roxas says, low and half-panting. "You're good," and he shifts, pulling himself up and then sinking back down slowly, both of them moaning at it. He presses his forehead against Axel's and does it again, faster this time, hands gripping tighter in his hair, pulling.

"Okay," he says again, pupils blown, eyes focussed down between their bodies, eyelashes fanning golden against his cheeks, and pulls himself up fast, and slams down hard, and doesn't stop, rides Axel's cock, hard, Axel's hips coming up to meet him each time, Roxas' breath gasping hot over Axel's mouth.

Axel can feel the heat starting to pool against his spine, too soon, and as much as he'd like to beat the runt at this game, he knows it's just not gonna happen. So he thrusts up harder, meeting Roxas with low smacking sounds that echo around his bedroom in an amazingly satisfying way, and leans his face up against Roxas', catching his lips again, sucking his lower lip in and running his tongue along it.

Roxas moans low in his throat, and Axel slams up hard and deep into him, biting down on Roxas' lip as he comes, shaking and shuddering, fingernails scratching hard at the skin of Roxas' lower back under the cloak, the backs of his eyelids whiting out.

When his vision and breath comes back, Roxas is smirking at him, face still flushed, cock still hard and dark against Axel's stomach.

"I win," he says, teeth bright white, and Axel slides his hands down, grabbing his arse and lifting him off, his cock slipping free wetly.

He lets Roxas drop onto his back on the bed, again, one leg flying up to land on Axel's shoulder, and Roxas' eyes are wide with something like surprise, as Axel grins and shoves three fingers into him, hard, leaning down and sucking his cock into his mouth.

Roxas shouts out, one hand fisting in Axel's hair almost painfully, and Axel can feel his own come wet and warm inside Roxas, and curves his fingers, feeling Roxas give and stretch around him, sucking hard on his cock and pushing the tip of his tongue into the slit.

Roxas arches over him, belly pressed against the top of his head, and comes thick into his mouth, cock jumping against his tongue, flesh pulsing tight around his fingers.

He falls back onto the bed, chest heaving, and Axel swallows around him as he goes soft in his mouth, licking him clean before letting him slip from his mouth. He pulls his fingers out, Roxas groaning softly, and watches as he closes up, empty.

Axel slides his hands under his arse, lifting him up slightly, legs limp to either side of him, and presses his tongue against Roxas' entrance. Roxas gasps, and Axel curves his tongue, pushing inside easily, the tip of his tongue touching against his insides briefly, hot and slick and tasting of his come. He slides it out and licks him over gently, three times, feeling Roxas' breath catch each time, before laying him back down and crawling up the bed to slump down beside him, awkwardly pulling his trousers off and slinging them away.

Roxas is still half wearing his cloak, and it's bunched up beneath them almost uncomfortably, the zips stuck halfway up his chest, fabric cutting twin V's over his body.

He brings one hand up to his hair, twisting and pulling at it absently, and Axel can see the movement out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't turn to look at Roxas, just carries on staring up at his ceiling, plain and white, looking for flaws.

"I've never seen you sleep before," Roxas says, quietly, and Axel wonders at it for a moment, cause surely he's seen him napping at some point, and even if he hasn't, it's a weird fucking reason to slip into his room in the middle of the night and start touching him. But he's too lax and sleepy to really care, so he lets it slide.

"Were you dreaming?" Roxas asks, and the movement of his fingers pauses for a moment, as if he caught himself unawares, asking that question, and it makes Axel almost wish he could be bothered to lift himself up and look at his face, cause it caught Axel unawares to.

"Nuh, not dreams," Axel he says instead, cause he knows he doesn't dream, he can remember dreams, stretching sticky like syrup between his fingertips, melting like cotton candy light and sickly on his tongue. "Just memories." Looping over and over again, repeating continuously, empty, until each night becomes another box, rows and rows of them in his mind, and they all look just the same. He frowns.

Roxas doesn't say anything; cause he knows that Axel knows that he doesn't remember anything. Doesn't even know who his Other is. Doesn't know that Axel does know, that Axel won't tell him, will never tell him. He feels something twinge at the bottom of his ribs, twisting and knotting. It feels slightly like indigestion. He scratches at it absently, and it eases.

Roxas has stopped playing with his own hair and has caught a spike of Axel's instead, the tugging gentle, and Axel finds his eyes drooping, his mind starting to drift.

"I want a muffin," Roxas says, randomly and abruptly, breaking Axel out of the lull he'd been slipping into. He was picking a weird fucking time to get chatty.

"Go and get a muffin then," he says, slightly annoyed, both at the loss of the warm comfort he'd been falling into and the chance that Roxas might get up and ruin it permanently.

"I can't," Roxas points out, matter-of-factly, the same way Roxas says pretty much everything. "Can you imagine walking into a muffin shop dressed up as a member of a cult-of-darkness?"

"Technically," Axel says, cause if Roxas is going to be all fucking logical and shit at this time of night, he might as well join him. "It's not dressing up if you're not pretending."

Roxas snorts and tugs a little harder at Axel's hair. In response, Axel rolls over on top of him, pressing his face into Roxas' neck and snuffling slightly. "I'll get you a muffin," he says, cause he's not worried about walking into a muffin shop naked, let alone in full Organisation XIII garb. His voice is muffled slightly by the skin of Roxas' shoulder. "But I want some fucking sleep first," he says, and Roxas smells of soft leather and sweat, smells warm, smells alive.

Roxas makes some sort of noise, as if in consideration, the vibration of it tickles at Axel's stomach. "Oversized red hedgehog," he mutters, his hand curling at Axel's shoulder blade, and Axel takes that as a yes, and settles himself more comfortably over him. He likes the press of his body against Roxas', even with the zippers and chains of his cloak digging into his chest. It's warm, and solid, and real.

"Runty little brat," he says, and licks the precise point where Roxas' neck arcs into his shoulder without opening his eyes.

* * *

Axel's minding his own business on the third floor when Zexion starts following him, which is really fucking unusual, cause it's Zexion, and cause Zexion's here, and not in Castle Oblivion, which he hasn't left for weeks. Axel lets it slide, but by the time he's wandered down to the first floor, it's starting to piss him off, so he stops and turns.

"What," he says, and Zexion just stops, raises an eyebrow. Walks a little closer.

"Oh, I thought maybe you were going to see Thirteen is all," he says; smooth and casual, so fucking fake. Axel resists the urge to punch him. "I wanted to congratulate him. I hear he did a good job."

"What," Axel says again, caught off guard, and has to stop himself from swearing out loud at how stupid that is. You never let your guard down around Zexion. It's like asking for a Heartless to _here look after these hearts for a minute, would you? I need to make a phone call_.

"You don't know? Oh, that's a shame," he pauses, looking down at his hand like he's thinking it over. As if he really thinks it's a fucking shame. "I thought you shared a certain level of, how shall we put it, 'comradeship?' with him," and then he steps up closer to Axel, tips his head near Axel's shoulder, hair sliding soft over Axel's skin, breath warm on Axel's neck. Axel doesn't really have time to move before he's stepped away again, mouth curved in that smug little fucking smile of his.

"I was told fire is purgative," he says, turning to walk away. "However, it seems it can't burn away all… scents," and then he's gone, nothing, not even the sound of his footsteps echoing back. Probably portaled out around the corner, sneaky fucker.

Axel stands there, alone, for a moment, resisting the urge to smell his cloak, his hair, his hand. Whatever it was Zexion picked up on. But he knows even if he does he won't be able to smell whatever Zexion smelt, cause Zexion's crazy like that. And he knows Zexion did it to put him off, to unnerve him, to freak him the fuck out.

He's not going to show that it fucking worked.

* * *

He finds Roxas on the twelfth floor balcony, sitting on the edge with his legs hanging off. He's got his hood up, which is strange, cause none of them really keep their hoods up when they're in the castle. He doesn't turn as Axel walks up beside him.

"Yo," Axel says, and before he can say anything else, Roxas pulls himself up to his feet, smooth as fucking silk, and turns to face him.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," he says, and Axel can't see his eyes, just his mouth, and some of his hair. The faint milky light pouring in from the half-formed Kingdom Hearts means he can't do the crazy yellow eyes trick, but then Axel's never been sure if that's deliberate or natural. He's sure it's fucking spooky, though.

There's something about the way he's holding himself, the way he's standing, that reminds Axel, suddenly, of when the Samurai first turned up, when he first saw Roxas leading them, when he first realised just how fucking dangerous Roxas could be.

"I heard—," Axel starts, and stops, cause he's not going to say that Zexion was here, that he spoke to Zexion, that Zexion smelt him and did that stupid manipulative thing Zexion does, and he's fucking fallen for it. Cause he's here, and that's exactly what Zexion wanted, and he can see it in Roxas' posture, in the fact that his hood's up, that he won't show Axel his fucking eyes. _I was wondering when you'd show up_, Roxas said. _I was waiting for you. I was waiting for this._

_This is how it ends._

Axel shuts his eyes tight for a moment, like a reflex, like he's just looked at a light that's so bright his eyes water. He knew it was coming, knew it with the inevitability of time, of gravity, of fire eating everything in it's path. You can take these things, hold them in your hand, put them in the biggest cage you can find, protect them, cherish them, and they'll still look to the sky. He feels a shudder run up through him, like a crack, starting in his gut and running up to his throat. _This is how it falls apart_, he thinks, and the break in him twists and knots and swirls, and then disappears. He can't remember what it felt like.

"C'mon then," Roxas says, and opens a portal, gesturing for Axel to go first. So Axel does.

* * *

He steps into a city, and, for a moment, is really disorientated, because he hasn't seen a city, a real city, with buildings tall, awe-inspiring and faceless, since _before_. He finds himself standing stupidly for a moment, starring up at the buildings stretching vast above him, colossal, as if straining upwards to reach the sky. It's raining, lightly, and the drops splash against Axel's cheeks, his eyelashes, and he blinks, dropping his head and pulling his hood up.

"Well," says Roxas' voice, from somewhere to the left of him, and he turns to face him quickly. He hadn't seen him portal in. "It wasn't like this before," he says, stepping away from the building he had been leaning against. Axel is struck with that strange sense again, like Roxas had been watching him, silent, and pulls his hood further over his face, feeling like the rain is trickling cold down his spine. Several of Roxas' Samurai warp out around them, and Roxas' eyes flick, yellow in the dark under his hood, and they dart off, away, down alleys and around corners.

"The darkness here seems to be reactive," Roxas says, voice logical. "It shapes to those it encounters." He lets it hang, deliberately, and Axel doesn't let his spine stiffen. He hadn't seen a city like this because there wasn't one anymore, isn't one anymore, and this one he's made. This one's fake.

"So," he says, cause he needs to talk, cause his hands are shaking and he doesn't know why. "What is this place?" He shoves them into his pockets and ignores them, looks up again, the sky above them, heavy and dark.

"Traverse Town," Roxas says.

"You're shitting me," Axel says, surprised, cause he remembers Traverse Town, cute little world, all dinky buildings and stray Heartless. Remembers how _he_ was dumped there after _his_ world imploded into darkness, drank _himself_ silly for a while and then moved on. Where to is murky. He figures soon after that he was born, his heart separated from his body, off to have it's own adventures in a nice, new, probably ridiculously fucking cute, body of darkness.

"You remember it?" Roxas asks, and Axel nods.

"Yeah. Looked fuck all like this though. What happened?" and as he speaks a new building draws itself up, out of the ground beside them, silent, rising up against the sky, giant screens appearing over the higher part of it like flowers, showing nothing but static. Roxas is silent beside him, and he figures the kid just thought of something. Something like a big building with a neon star on the front and giant fucking TV screens sitting on the top. "Nice," he says.

"We're not sure," Roxas says, and Axel can't tell if he's ignoring the new building or not with his hood up, but he can tell he's ignoring Axel's not-ignoring it. "Something about it not being a real world. No one actually lived there, so once they all left, it decayed, and the Heartless took over." He shrugs, and something clicks in Axel's mind.

_This is how it ends._

"This is what you were doing, isn't it?" he says, cause he's finally fucking figured it out. This place is drenched in darkness, dripping with it, and the only reason the Heartless that probably own this world like a fucking _nest_ haven't turned up yet is cause Roxas sent his Samurai off to keep them back. Axel laughs. "This is fucking it. Go find a world with more Heartless than anywhere else. Probably wasn't expecting something this fucking perfect, but not even the boss is crazy enough to think up someplace like this," he laughs again, sharply, and it echoes away from them.

The rain starts falling harder.

_This is how it falls apart._

"I can't tell you," he says, so suddenly that he doesn't remember opening his mouth. It just spilled out, like he was filled to the brim with something, overflowing, almost painful against his throat. Roxas is silent, but Axel can see his hands curling loosely at his sides. He looks up, eyes flashing yellow under his hood, looking more Heartless than Nobody, and Axel holds his gaze until he looks away.

"What do you think?" he says, voice cold, logical, a million miles away from the Roxas that dragged him into Christmas town, laughing when Axel pissed and moaned and tripped in the snow. He spreads his hands out, indicating the city around them, sleeves billowing in a way vaguely reminiscent of the boss. Axel can't see his face, can't see his hands, can't see any skin, anything of _him_. Just black. He looks up again, at the sky above them, devoid of stars, swollen with darkness, empty. An image flickers over the screens briefly, a face, maybe, or a memory, before it disappears to static again. He feels suddenly, abstractly, as if he's standing on the edge of a gaping hole, tipping, waiting to fall, and the city tilts around him. A pain shoots through his left shoulder, ghostly and dull, as if he had an old wound there that had just pulled. He rubs at it with one thumb until it eases, and shoves his hand back into his pocket, the city righting itself around him. He turns back to Roxas, grin razor-sharp and bright under his hood.

"I think we should move in."


End file.
